Page 23 of Wings of Lies (Daughter of the Seven Circles #1)

Chapter

Sixteen

U nearthly beauty reeled me in like a sucking black hole. Her hair was the color of a starless night, flowing in long waves down her tight, black bodice. She was regal. Her ebony eyes had scarlet rings and were washed with a purple film.

It was another dream-walk, similar to the one of my mom and—I gritted my teeth remembering bits and pieces of that man.

I didn’t invade any bodies. Here, without vertigo, my skinny body was my own.

A big difference from my last dream-walk, where I was toned, my breasts weren’t pancakes, a strange guy helped warm me, and my mom confessed to?—

“The infamous Saraqael is summoning me?” I jerked back. Saraqael? That was my mom’s name. “What would your precious angel say about this?” She smiled. But there was nothing friendly about it.

“How is it done? ”

I peeked around a large pillar and found my mom on the other side of a circle of prominent red symbols. Her body shimmered with a pure white light. Glory.

They were opposites. One dark and sinful, the other light and pure.

“How is what done?” The dark one asked, intrigued. She prowled inside the symbols. Mulberry lips tilted in a predatory smile.

“Children.”

The dark woman laughed, filling the air with a lilting melody. “Saraqael, you can’t have children. You know that.”

“I heard different.” She paused. “And I heard you’ve helped others.”

Swirling black silk grazed the white slippers of my mom’s feet. Long-painted nails attempted to reach for her chin, but the dark woman couldn’t breach the circle of symbols. “Did you now? And did these others happen to have names or locations?” Danger edged her questioning tone.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Shouldn’t you know who you’ve helped?”

Her lips twisted. “I’ve helped many. But your kind? Very few. And none have proven to be successful. Or so I’ve been told.” Her fake smile dropped.

My mom kept quiet.

“You want to know how to have a child. You will give me their name. And do not lie to me, for I know your other half would never allow you to associate with the likes of us, and I wouldn’t want him finding out,” she said sweetly, sounding like she wouldn’t care one bit if he found out .

The light on my mom’s skin guttered. “Miriam,” she whispered.

A genuine smile spread on the dark woman’s face.

“Very unexpected of you, Saraqael. Twice today. First summoning me and second, giving up the name so easily.” Black silk swirled, trailing the circle of glistening writing.

“But a deal is a deal. Although, I’m not sure you’ll ever have a child.

And not because it is still difficult with my methods.

But because you and whoever the father will be will need to tangle with a lot of dark energy,” she tittered.

“That purist you’re with would send you to hell himself before doing that. You could see my husband.”

My mom lifted her head, determination in her stiff shoulders. “Tell me.”

Purple light flashed, and my eyes opened.

I was born. My mom was an Archangel, and she found a way to have me with the help of the creepy, dark woman. Did that make me the first-born angel in existence? Was that why I had Glory, and they took me? All these questions made my head hurt.

I surveyed my surroundings, trying to block the blue moonlight streaming in, which was making my headache worse.

The moonlight shed its light onto a small minimalist room.

A table to my right held a flickering candle lamp and a bowl of pink water with a washcloth.

The walls were plain with no adornment, no extra furniture but the cream bed and side table.

I pushed myself into a sitting position and gasped.

My sides burned, and my legs throbbed with the slightest twitch.

Pushing past the pain, I pulled the quilt down.

A loose shirt pulled up to my breasts showed a bandage wrapped tightly around my ribs.

Lower yet, two tight bandages circled my thighs, painfully so.

Tempted to unwind them, I fingered the edge of the gauze. It was sticky?

A substance oozed from the corners. I rubbed it on the pad of my fingers. Was that —I sniffed it. Honey?

More curious than ever, I unwound the gauze at my ribs, then stopped and stared at my wrists. How I didn’t notice before was beyond me, but my cuffs were gone. My wrist and finger splint were not. Or they had been rewrapped.

Continuing my unraveling, the gauze turned pink, darkening with each pull.

“Stop—” I jerked at Aspen’s voice, covering myself. “Your wounds need to stay tightly bound!” he snapped, almost sounding panicked.

He stood in the open doorway, tense. I was so immersed in my head that I forgot about him and the others. But, of course, they were still close by.

“Where am I?” I rasped, throat dry.

He glared at my hidden ribs. His cloak appeared fresh compared to the splattered green gunk of his leathers. The candlelight flickered across the sculpted muscle of his tensing arms. Blushing, I clamped down on my cheeks and turned my face away.

“We brought you to a healer named Hana.” He waited for that to sink in and continued.

“You’ve been unconscious for two days. We didn’t think you were going to make it at first. But Hana’s one of the best healers around.

She worked tirelessly on you, and you’re undermining all the effort we put into saving your damned life!

” he spat, drilling holes into my partially unwrapped sides.

I could hear the respect he had for her in his voice. Who knew he respected anyone, as big of an asshole as he was .

“What are you staring at? Rewrap your damned wounds!”

His demanding, arrogant tone grated on me. Perhaps I should unwrap the rest of my ribs and stuff the bloody cloth into his mouth.

Unfortunately, I listened to his forceful words, but not without taking my unnamed frustration out on him. “Have you ever thought about a gag?”

Nonplussed, his lips pressed into a thin line as he raised a skeptical brow.

Oh, he wasn’t going to like this. I held back my anticipatory smile. “You know, to keep the condescending shit from spilling out of your mouth.”

His eyes darkened. I threw him one of those smug smirks he’d given me the last few days. It dropped when he didn’t react. I guess the smirk didn’t affect him like it did me.

“Once Hana gives the go-ahead, we’ll be back on our way to give you to our queen,” he said point-blank.

“Your queen, as in your mother?”

Something strange flashed through his eyes—like confusion mixed with horror. But it tightened his face for less than a second before a soft red light flashed beneath his chin, and his cold mask eradicated the emotions.

What was that light?

Unable to sit in silence as he scrutinized me, I snarked, “You’re finally giving me answers?”

“Figured I’d gift you a small slice for not dying on us.”

I huffed. “Oh, right. Because dealing with my dead carcass would be a hindrance.”

“You’re more important to her alive than dead. For—” He stopped himself .

Did he really think I was that stupid?

“For now? Your queen, mother, whoever the hell she is,” I was getting worked up. “Wants me alive, for now.”

He didn’t confirm or deny, but his silence answered for him.

My head dropped back against the headboard, defeated and tired.

The prince walked into the room, white knuckling the hilt of his sword. “Maybe you should’ve listened to me,” he barked, branding me with his glare and his hot, apple-scented breath. Inching away wasn’t an option, so I had to live in his angry proximity.

“This again?” The fabric in my hands scrunched in my fists.

“Why the hell would I listen to you?” I scoffed.

“You just admitted that my life was only as valuable as whatever I could provide to your wretched queen. ” My head thrust forward in cadence to the last two words, ignoring the tug on my stitches, just in case he didn’t hear the vehemence in my tone.

His grip tightened on his sword as the muscle in his jaw pulsed. He didn’t like me insulting his sovereign, but too bad.

“I’m not going to your vile queen. I want nothing to do with you and your pack of whatever Cacus and Bael are.

” The throbbing in my side intensified, forcing me to sit back with a grimace.

It was proof that my words were more bark than bite.

If I couldn’t even sit up without support, there was no way I was getting away from them.

Quietly, he stared, watching me with an intensity that made me squirm. The blues of his eyes forced me to hold my ground even though I wanted to look down.

“Demons.” He voiced at last.

“What? ”

Crossing his arms, he tilted his head to the side. “Cacus and Bael are Cambion demons. They explode on the brink of death, killing anyone near them.” There was another stilted pause as he waited for my reaction.

“Cambion…” I trailed off, my mind going a mile a minute. It wasn’t a stretch to think those two hulking beasts were demons, but I never thought—I shook my head—no wonder the Hellhounds wouldn’t approach them. Fighting the demons was tantamount to suicide.

“You didn’t know,” he laughed with disbelief. “What do you know about Elora?”

Glaring, I bit into my cheeks. There was such arrogance in his tone, like he knew what my answer would be and couldn’t wait to rub it in my face. If he continued like this, I’d either end up chewing through my flesh, gagging him myself, or worse, I’d dissolve this quilt.

But he was right, and that had me tasting copper.

I was brought to a world I knew barely anything about, with someone I just met, all because some voice in my head told me to.

And look where I was now.

I would not answer his question. Giving him that satisfaction would end me, even though my silence would condemn me.

Aspen grunted, looking at me with disbelief. “Your ignorance is going to get you killed.” His words were salt in an open wound.

“Excuse me?” My nostrils flared.

His next grunt nearly tripped the strings of the melody that lurked beneath my rage.